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Y'know, it just ain't right...

By The Armorer on February 1, 2006 | | Comments (5)

Twitchy Bill's favorite 'small arm'

...when the holdings of the Arsenal at Castle Argghhh! include Bill the Rotorhead's favorite small arm (no ladies, not *that* one - see 27" zipper), as he opined in the comments of a post earlier this week:

Blake - The M3 was handy for cleaning out bunkers, but you had to get within fifteen feet of a firing port to do it properly. A 2.75" FFAR from 500 meters would do the same thing, albeit without that *personal* touch.

Heh. I *love* the M3. And we don't have one in the Holdings of the Arsenal of Argghhh!. 2.75" FFARs we have. Two of 'em. One with a neat sectioned warhead.

Mebbe it *is* time to put up a Paypal Button to buy the Arsenal one of these.

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5 Comments

By J.M. Heinrichs on February 1, 2006 8:47 AM
CRV7 Cheers JMH
 
By MajMike on February 1, 2006 8:51 AM
ahh, the good old greaser... loved that piece. such a shame when we made those go away during the transition from -60 series panzers to the Abrams.
 
By blake.kirk on February 1, 2006 11:01 AM
A bunch of years ago, there was a prototype running around of a multiple-launch rocket system for light forces based on the 70mm/2.75" rocket. The one version I saw had six standard 19-shot pods mounted in a framework on a modified 1/4-ton trailer chassis. I think it used a high-end (for the time) pocket calculator to do the firing computations, rather like the early mortar computers. Me I rather liked the idea. I was still light infantry at the time, and I figured anything that beefed up our firepower while still being easliy moved around was a Good Thing. But it was a private venture, and Wasn't Invented Here, and so went nowhere.
 
By cw4(ret)billt on February 1, 2006 12:50 PM
A sectioned 17-pounder! Neat--now you've gotta work on getting an MPSM and a flechette. I've got a couple of practice rockets that were modified for EMI testing in the late '80s--they look weird, but they worked. Plus some dummy 10-pounders... Blake - The main problem with that system had to do with exterior ballistics as the rockets left the tube. A rocket orients into the prevailing wind after launch and drifts. A helicopter compensates for this by launching in forward flight for direct fire. Since the old Mk 40 was fairly slow leaving the tube, it was affected pretty radically by a stiff crosswind, so we tried to orient into the wind for firing whenever feasible. It's a whole new ball of wax for Mk 40 indirect fire--rocket dispersion increased dramatically. The switch to the Mk 66 solved an awful lot of problems, but we still had to use firing tables, compensate for wind and shoot using a "rocking horse" maneuver--launch when you're hanging by your nose a split second before you fall backwards to a hover. Dispersion isn't as great when you're able to orient into the wind, and you don't always have that luxury in a ground vehicle.
 
By Blake Kirk on February 2, 2006 8:22 AM
Thanks, Bill. That explanation does make sense.
 
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